Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has approved the name ‘Her Power’ instead of ‘She Power’ in the second phase of the project taken by the ICT department to empower women with the help of technology. The Prime Minister presided over the meeting by joining the NEC conference room in Sher-e-Bangla Nagar of the capital through video conference from Ganobhaban. At the end of the meeting, Planning Minister MA Mannan and State Minister for Planning Dr. Shamsul Alam presented the instructions of the Prime Minister.
State Minister for ICT Zunaid Ahmed Palak presented the ‘She Power’ Project: Women Empowerment with Technology (Phase II) project at a meeting of the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council on Tuesday. Through this project passed in the meeting, a total of 25,125 women will be given 5 months training in four categories to increase the capacity of women in information technology in 130 upazilas of 44 districts under the supervision of Department of Information and Communication Technology. Of these, 10,400 are as IT Service providers; 10,400 female a freelancers; The training will be imparted to 1,075 female call center agents and 3,250 female e-commerce professionals. At the end of the training, 01 (one) month long mentorship program will be organized with the trainees who have passed. Under the project, a single Women Entrepreneur Platform will be set up to train 25,125 women as ICT professionals and entrepreneurs.
Expressing gratitude to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina for approving the project, State Minister for ICT Zunaid Ahmed Palak said that training of trained women would create employment opportunities at the next stage, networking with other ICT organizations or ICT professional women, various information and initiatives in the ongoing IT sector. The Women Entrepreneur Platform will be set up for activities such as information exchange, research, monitoring, etc. Successful trainees will be provided financial assistance for the purchase of laptops. The implementation of this project will contribute to the transformation of marginalized women into skilled and productive human resources in ICT. This will make it easier to ensure poverty alleviation, women’s empowerment, good governance and sustainable development.
It may be noted that, under the Information and Communication Technology Department’s ‘She Power: Women Empowerment Project’, 10,500 women have been provided freelancers through the technology empowerment project to ensure inclusion of women in the mainstream of ICT development and their sustainable empowerment through enhanced skills in basic and ever-evolving fields of ICT), IT service providers (4,000) and call center agents (2,500) have been trained in these three categories. The training has been successfully completed which has resulted in increased participation of women in IT sector, development of women as entrepreneurs and creation of self-employment opportunities.